The twilight of international cooperation?

Nicaraguan activist’s visit to Canada underscores and challenges the decline of the international solidarity movement

By:Craig Frayne / guest blogger | November 20, 2012

In cold, rainy November, a battle-worn Nicaraguan activist comes to Canada. She speaks of the withdrawal of international cooperation and its human consequences. In a darkening era of austerity, she searches for signs of a rebirth of the solidarity she once felt from the North.

This week concluded the Canadian visit of Sandra Ramos, founding member and director of Nicaragua’s “Maria Elena Cuadra” Working and Unemployed Women’s Movement (MEC).

The tour was hosted by Horizons of Friendship—a Canadian agency that supports MEC, along with a number of other civil society organizations in Central America. Ramos’s visit, while intended to address social-economic challenges in Nicaragua, was perhaps as revealing of the situation in Canada and other G8 countries. The visit came in the shadow of large cuts in Canada’s international cooperation budget and the withdrawal of a number of European aid organizations from Central America. As civil society partnerships and development assistance vanish, private investment and free-trade agreements increase. Ramos refers to this as the privatization of international cooperation, with the “austerity agenda” used as a pretext to dismantle social services and advance special interests.

The MEC women’s movement was born in 1994 out of a crisis within the Sandinista Workers’ Council (CST). The recently privatized textile—or “maquiladora”—industries recruited a workforce of mostly young women who were subject to labor and human-rights violations with no recourse from the traditional trade union movement. The workers went on strike and formed the “Maria Elena Cuadra” movement named in honor of a labor rights advocate who had recently died in a car accident. With the future of their cause uncertain, they turned to international agencies for support, including Horizons of Friendship of Canada.

The MEC movement was founded in response to foreign companies that came to Nicaragua’s then newly formed “Zona Franca” (Free Trade Zones) under the false dawn of neo-liberalism. This ideology was sold to cash-strapped governments around the world, and Nicaragua simply entered the global market. But when workers faced 12-hour shifts, a $5/week wage, and chain-locked factory doors, it had nothing to do with ideology; it was a fight for their very bodies and dignity.

Ramos talks to an attentive crowd about issues in Nicaragua (photo/ Craig Frayne)

Two decades later, these women have a lot to be proud of. The movement has reached thousands and brought gender and labour rights issues to international attention. Earlier this year, MEC and other organizations were successful in getting the new Integral Law Against Violence Against Women passed in the National Assembly—a landmark achievement for the feminist movement in the whole region.

“All these changes took place on the streets, through protest,” Ramos said. “No government, no one in power ever gave us anything.”

People in many other parts of the world—Canada included—are now getting a taste of what the struggle of these women means. This mutual understanding may be precisely what is necessary to revive international cooperation among civil society.

The “dark, satanic mills” of the industrialized world are now global. Wealth has become ever more concentrated and public services diminished. The fallout of short sighted industrial policies can now be seen on the streets, with massive protests in Argentina, Southern Europe, or the Occupy movement in North America. Canada, the U.S., Spain, Italy, etc. have all created a “lost generation” with high unemployed and underemployment rates among young people.

The need for change in the economic order is becoming clear. What is not clear is where the leadership and organization will come from. As was apparent during Ramos’ visit to Canada, the traditional means of social reform (unions, media, arts, academia, etc.) have largely been dismantled and privatized; much of the public has become insulated.

“I first came to this country [Canada] as a young women,” Ramos told an attentive crowd in Toronto; “but this time, I notice a difference—where’s the solidarity, where’s the sense of urgency?”

November in Canada can be as forgiving as it is austere. While traveling between cities, Ramos remarked on the beauty when sunlight broke through the gray sky, reflecting off the frosted landscape. As public funding is cut, the future of MEC and other civil society organizations in Central America is uncertain. What is certain is that “no government, no one in power” will easily give anything, and it will depend on the creativity and struggle of those most affected, whether in Nicaragua, Canada or elsewhere.

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The following is a public service announcement from The Nicaragua Dispatch. We know that spelling is hard, and it's hot outside, but if you're going to go out tagging the walls of Managua to protest the Chinese canal this week, it's worth getting your message straight before you shake the spray paint can.

Our story may be an exceptional one; I certainly hope it is. Since last September, our organization, Interfaith Service to Latin America (www.isla.cc), has been attempting unsuccessfully to get a shipping container with approximately $150,000 worth of largely medical supplies and equipment out of Nicaraguan customs at Puerto Corinto and delivered to the public hospital in Jalapa, Nueva Segovia.

OK, I’m a bit confused about what is being asked for and from whom. It’s a labour movement and women’s movement rolled together to benefit Nicaraguan Women?

Are they looking for labour unions to support them, womens groups, Federal Government handout? Talking about ‘solidarity’ won’t cut any purse strings at the Government level as that would smack of political meddling.

Money is tight even up here in Canada so it’s going to be a hard selling job unless some real specific project is being put on the table.

You’ve got a Sandanista Government in power with pretty tough workplace legislation if only it would be put into practice ‘across the board’ . I’m told Nicaraguan not Foreign business are hardest on employees because somehow the rules don’t apply to them?

Maybe I just don’t get the point of what’s this about.

stardust

It’s not meant to scream at the reader, but I think there’s plenty of relevant points to consider, whether you agree or not.

“As civil society partnerships and development assistance vanish, private investment and free-trade agreements increase. Ramos refers to this as the privatization of international cooperation, with the “austerity agenda” used as a pretext to dismantle social services and advance special interests.”

(posted Jan 26, 11:15 pm) —Nicaragua’s opposition Independent Liberal Party (PLI) today called on President Daniel Ortega to work towards finding a peaceful solution to growing political violence in the northern mountains of Jinotega after a weekend attack with a mysterious backpack bomb killed three alleged rearmed contras in the municipality of Pantasma.

Adding a wrinkle of confusion to a mystery shrouded in doubt, a spokesman for the Chinese canal in Nicaragua announced that the route has been redrawn to circumvent a farming community that has been energetically protesting the $50 billion project for months.

In Case You Missed It

Editorial
With an obsequious bow to Russian expansionism, Nicaragua this week joined North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and five other model democracies in rejecting a UN resolution that reaffirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukraine. The UN resolution, which calls the Crimea referendum invalid and urges a “peaceful resolution” to the crisis following Russia’s annexation of the peninsula, was supported by 100 nations and rejected by 11.

As Sandinista faithful mobilize in the streets of Managua to pay homage to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on the one-year anniversary of his death, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan analysts predict the international project he started won’t outlive its founder for much longer. President Daniel Ortega, who is traveling to Venezuela to pay official tribute to his former benefactor, honored Chávez as a revolutionary who “fought for the people, fought for America, fought for humanity, fought for peace and fought for justice.”
Prior to leaving for the airport today, Ortega said that now, “more than ever,” the countries belonging to the alliance created by Chávez will “continue to fight for peace, for justice, for liberty and for the sovereignty of our people.”
But just a year after the loss of Chávez’s charismatic leadership, and amid the ruin of Venezuela’s economy, the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA) —Chávez’s brainchild for regional integration — appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own ambition.